The White House and California's attorney general are taking aim at a troubling topic: how to ensure consumer privacy on the Web while keeping an innovative industry thriving. The first steps are partial but promising efforts to strike the right balance.

After years of study, the White House issued a "privacy bill of rights" that seeks to give smart phone and computer users more control over their personal data, which is culled by service providers for advertising.

Whenever a user launches a Google search or wanders through Facebook, a treasure trove of information is collected by online firms and app makers. This data fuels investment and new ideas in the online world but at the price of invading an unwitting user's privacy.

Consumers, dimly aware of the issue for years, are now increasingly upset at this sophisticated data mining and the flagrant abuses practiced by some firms. Washington has just begun taking up the topic, with President Obama's approach a major starting point.

His plan calls for a cooperative effort drawing in major tech firms and consumer groups. It's a reasonable opening bid, but it risks achieving little if one side balks or dominates the debate. Also, the final package will be left to Congress to devise, a path that could yield results or watered-down proclamations that mean little.

In Sacramento, Attorney General Kamala Harris announced an agreement aimed at protecting one aspect of consumer privacy. The plan was worked out of with several of the online world's biggest players, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Research in Motion, and will require that application developers disclose their privacy policies.

A consumer shopping for a smart phone app will know in advance what the seller plans to do with personal data that's collected, according to the agreement. It's an improvement that carries legal penalties for violations. It hinges on app users taking the time to wade through privacy disclosures for practices that might be objectionable.

One key issue worth watching in the privacy debate is the "Do Not Track" option. Tech firms such as Google, Mozilla and Microsoft favor giving users the opportunity to keep their online habits private via a Web page button. But the exact definition of tracking - and the lucrative ad revenues at stake - make it an elusive area to control completely.

As President Obama noted in announcing his new policy, "We must reject the conclusion that privacy is an outmoded value." That's the right sentiment to voice at the start of a long process that aims to find firm answers.